From the Georgia Institute of Technology
‘Stadium waves’ could explain lull in global warming
One of the most controversial issues emerging from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is the failure of global climate models to predict a hiatus in warming of global surface temperatures since 1998. Several ideas have been put forward to explain this hiatus, including what the IPCC refers to as ‘unpredictable climate variability’ that is associated with large-scale circulation regimes in the atmosphere and ocean. The most familiar of these regimes is El Niño/La Niña, which are parts of an oscillation in the ocean-atmosphere system. On longer multi-decadal time scales, there is a network of atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
A new paper published in the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that this ‘unpredictable climate variability’ behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed.
The paper’s authors, Marcia Wyatt and Judith Curry, point to the so-called ‘stadium-wave’ signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a ‘wave’ propagates through the audience. In like manner, the ‘stadium wave’ climate signal propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo.
The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus. Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last.
Building upon Wyatt’s Ph.D. thesis at the University of Colorado, Wyatt and Curry identified two key ingredients to the propagation and maintenance of this stadium wave signal: the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and sea ice extent in the Eurasian Arctic shelf seas. The AMO sets the signal’s tempo, while the sea ice bridges communication between ocean and atmosphere. The oscillatory nature of the signal can be thought of in terms of ‘braking,’ in which positive and negative feedbacks interact to support reversals of the circulation regimes. As a result, climate regimes — multiple-decade intervals of warming or cooling — evolve in a spatially and temporally ordered manner. While not strictly periodic in occurrence, their repetition is regular — the order of quasi-oscillatory events remains consistent. Wyatt’s thesis found that the stadium wave signal has existed for at least 300 years.
The new study analyzed indices derived from atmospheric, oceanic and sea ice data since 1900. The linear trend was removed from all indices to focus only the multi-decadal component of natural variability. A multivariate statistical technique called Multi-channel Singular Spectrum Analysis (MSSA) was used to identify patterns of variability shared by all indices analyzed, which characterizes the ‘stadium wave.’ The removal of the long-term trend from the data effectively removes the response from long term climate forcing such as anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
The stadium wave periodically enhances or dampens the trend of long-term rising temperatures, which may explain the recent hiatus in rising global surface temperatures.
“The stadium wave signal predicts that the current pause in global warming could extend into the 2030s,” said Wyatt, an independent scientist after having earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 2012.
Curry added, “This prediction is in contrast to the recently released IPCC AR5 Report that projects an imminent resumption of the warming, likely to be in the range of a 0.3 to 0.7 degree Celsius rise in global mean surface temperature from 2016 to 2035.” Curry is the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Previous work done by Wyatt on the ‘wave’ shows the models fail to capture the stadium-wave signal. That this signal is not seen in climate model simulations may partially explain the models’ inability to simulate the current stagnation in global surface temperatures.
“Current climate models are overly damped and deterministic, focusing on the impacts of external forcing rather than simulating the natural internal variability associated with nonlinear interactions of the coupled atmosphere-ocean system,” Curry said.
The study also provides an explanation for seemingly incongruous climate trends, such as how sea ice can continue to decline during this period of stalled warming, and when the sea ice decline might reverse. After temperatures peaked in the late 1990s, hemispheric surface temperatures began to decrease, while the high latitudes of the North Atlantic Ocean continued to warm and Arctic sea ice extent continued to decline. According to the ‘stadium wave’ hypothesis, these trends mark a transition period whereby the future decades will see the North Atlantic Ocean begin to cool and sea ice in the Eurasian Arctic region begin to rebound.
Most interpretations of the recent decline in Arctic sea ice extent have focused on the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing, with some allowance for natural variability. Declining sea ice extent over the last decade is consistent with the stadium wave signal, and the wave’s continued evolution portends a reversal of this trend of declining sea ice.
“The stadium wave forecasts that sea ice will recover from its recent minimum, first in the West Eurasian Arctic, followed by recovery in the Siberian Arctic,” Wyatt said. “Hence, the sea ice minimum observed in 2012, followed by an increase of sea ice in 2013, is suggestive of consistency with the timing of evolution of the stadium-wave signal.”
The stadium wave holds promise in putting into perspective numerous observations of climate behavior, such as regional patterns of decadal variability in drought and hurricane activity, the researchers say, but a complete understanding of past climate variability and projections of future climate change requires integrating the stadium-wave signal with external climate forcing from the sun, volcanoes and anthropogenic forcing.
“How external forcing projects onto the stadium wave, and whether it influences signal tempo or affects timing or magnitude of regime shifts, is unknown and requires further investigation,” Wyatt said. “While the results of this study appear to have implications regarding the hiatus in warming, the stadium wave signal does not support or refute anthropogenic global warming. The stadium wave hypothesis seeks to explain the natural multi-decadal component of climate variability.”
Marcia Wyatt is an independent scientist. Judith Curry’s participation in this research was funded by a Department of Energy STTR grant under award number DE SC007554, awarded jointly to Georgia Tech and the Climate Forecast Applications Network. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.
CITATION: M.G. Wyatt, et al., “Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century,” (Climate Dynamics, 2013). http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-013-1950-2#page-1
Oh goody another model. Who wants to bet against this one failing to predict the future just like every other climate model? Give it a rest people–you haven’t a clue as to what the planet is doing.
Dear Richard Courtney,
Thanks for a very clear, explicit and sensible explanation. I found the second conclusion that you drew from the paper particularly interesting.
My only quibble with you is that I was brought up to consider that a “hypothesis” only gradated to a “theory” when there was sufficient experimental or observational evidence to justify the promotion. So far as I am concerned Wyatt’s proposition is still only a hypothesis.
Since “global warming” and “climate change” didn’t pan out, perhaps its time to try “rogue waves” as the next climate scare.
The adjusted temperature record shows a pause of 17 years.
Satellite data shows a pause of 30 years
The Central England temperature record shows a pause of 300 years.
What we seem to have developing now is a new form of climate scam where scientists claim they can explain certain features of the temperature record when there is no agreement between different forms of the same record. I call BS on all of them. I think they should start by properly measuring the climate accurately and then come back to us when they have sensible observations they can use on which to based their science.
That any researcher (independent, corporate, Ivory Tower, or amateur) has to sugar coat and pussy foot around important folks from either side of this debate (and I believe there is a bit of that pussy footing in the current paper) is testimony of the potential for research biased behavior in that field of study.
That any researcher (of any type above) feels emotionally connected to their endeavor is testimony of the potential for biased behavior in that researcher (and we sure get a lot of that here among some of our amateur as well as some of our published folks).
That is not to say that data and plausible mechanism should not be forced upon us in order to measure the current or a pet paradigm. I am saying that any and all evidence of emotional “clinging” to pet/popular/preferred theories (solar, sun, AGW, Standing Wave, etc) should be removed from one’s public speaking and even more importantly from one’s private laboratory endeavors (and I do not believe there is evidence of that in the current paper). Instead you should be steadfastly and unemotionally trying to refute your own work.
Measure your emotional response to and during research. If it is low, good. Continue digesting/following where the research data leads. If it is high, you should proceed with caution. You are at risk of dismissing valuable information or jumping on an unsupported bandwagon.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917255/
Regarding the pussy footing/sugar coating, that AGW/CO2 ghg had to be mentioned at all in the paper still speaks to the sad state of affairs in my opinion.
To clarify, I find the dry, unemotional tone of the paper as well as comments penned by the researchers to be refreshing. Emotions stir up mud and cloud accuracy. Color commentary bad. Technical comments good. Clarity of thought with data, mechanism, and straightforward syntax is ear candy to me.
Is Dr Curry to be compared w/the likes of Mann, Hansen, Jones, Trenberth, Wigley, Connelly, Schmidt, etc, etc, etc? Unfair. She has an uncensored website and openly discusses the issues, at the very least.
Stephen Wilde, Joe Bastardi, Joe D’ Aleo and countless others have all talked about what Judith Curry and Marcia Wyatt ,are trying to convey, as some kind of a new discovery.
They are trying to make it seem as if they have discovered something new, when in reality it is nothing new at all.
They also can’t explan why the AMO flips, only that is just does.
Colorado Wellington says:
Should we propose that the “pause” could be to global warming what menopause is to reproductive ability?
Sure, that might work with “pause”. But then how would you explain “hiatus”, “lull”, “stall”, and similar words?
Pochas suggests “plateau”. That might work.
This puts the current climate in perspective. All the wild eyed arm-waving is based on slide #1. But by slide #3, we see that current temperaures are very benign.
[the gif takes a few seconds to load]
What they say:It is important to be clear on what this hypothesis regards. It describes propagation of a signal through a network of synchronized, lagged ocean, ice, and atmospheric indices in a regularly occurring (not periodic) manner, averaging to ~64 years peak to peak during the 20th century. this is what our hypothesis
Which means nothing., in my opinion.
Marcia Wyatt
I greatly look forward to reading your paper in full. I find nonlinear oscillatory phenomena fascinating and I am sure they are a much under-appreciated player in many natural phenomena (I have published in the biology literature on nonlinear emergent pattern in a certain genetic bone pathology). Tsonis and Swanson were on the right track and you are taking their work forward brilliantly.
You might look – as I’m sure you have – to the extensive literature on nonlinear oscillators for further insights as to mechanism. For instance, I had a quick look and found these three:
Steinhauser et al 2012:
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~ksteinha/papers/CLIMDYN11.pdf
Donges et al 2009:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.4359.pdf
Slotine et al 2004:
http://web.mit.edu/nsl/www/preprints/belgium04.pdf
The latter is interesting in introducing the concept of “power leader” and “knowledge leader” among synchronized nonlinear oscillators. Here is the abstract:
Contraction analysis of synchronization in networks of nonlinearly coupled oscillators.
Slotine, Jean-Jacques E., Wei Wang, and Khalid El-Rifai
Proc. 16th Int. Symp. Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems. 2004.
Nonlinear contraction theory allows surprisingly simple analysis of synchronisation phenomena in distributed networks of coupled nonlinear elements. The key idea is the construction of a virtual contracting system whose particular solutions include the individual subsystems’ states. We also study the role, in both nature and system design, of co-existing “power” leaders, to which the networks synchronize, and “knowledge” leaders, to whose parameters the networks adapt. Also described are applications to large scale computation using neural oscillators, and to time-delayed tele-operation between synchronized groups. Similarly, contraction theory can be systematically and simply extended to address classical questions in hybrid nonlinear systems. The key idea is to view the formal definition of a virtual displacement, a concept central to the theory, as describing the state transition of a differential system. This yields in turn a compositional contraction analysis of switching and resetting phenomena. Applications to hybrid nonlinear oscillators are also discussed.
Following from this, quoting from the above article on your work with Curry:
Building upon Wyatt’s Ph.D. thesis at the University of Colorado, Wyatt and Curry identified two key ingredients to the propagation and maintenance of this stadium wave signal: the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and sea ice extent in the Eurasian Arctic shelf seas. The AMO sets the signal’s tempo, while the sea ice bridges communication between ocean and atmosphere.
Using Slotine’s terminology, could the AMO be the “power leader” or possibly the “knowledge leader”?
You are the best news climate science has had for a long time. Thanks again for dropping by.
If one goes back in time far enough and not that far what they are saying does not ,will not hold up.
Any time any one tries to say one certain aspect of the climate system, is the cause for the climate system and resorts to a short period of time to show why this is true makes me lose interest quickly.
If the Arctic is about to freeze up again, then the huge Arctic port Russia is building to serve trade with China using the Arctic passage is one giant miscalculation. The land grab in the world courts by the nations with Arctic borders, being pursued to establish oil drilling rights, loses punch. There are a lot of powerful interests being challenged by this research.
Ian Wilson says:
October 10, 2013 at 5:03 pm
I am with Stephen Wild on this one.
This paper is a classic case of some one in the “in-crowd” saying exactly what people in the “out-crowd” having being saying for close to a decade (or more) and being told by the “in-crowd” that they are “paradigm-breakers”.
Indeed.
Pamela, your failure is inability to distinguish between grey and black-&-white. On black-&-white issues (not to be deliberately confused with grey ones) what you overlook and underestimate is the social injustice and consequent backlash of abusing authority to aggressively assert that 1+1 does not equal 2, a devilish act which proves beyond all shadow of a doubt the social intractability of a politically corrupted discussion context. When authority darkly refuses to acknowledge 1+1=2, we can safely bet our lives and the lives of our family members that the multifaceted discussion cannot be neatly contained as you naively suggest.
Pamela Gray says:
October 11, 2013 at 8:00 am
To clarify, I find the dry, unemotional tone of the paper as well as comments penned by the researchers to be refreshing. Emotions stir up mud and cloud accuracy. Color commentary bad. Technical comments good. Clarity of thought with data, mechanism, and straightforward syntax is ear candy to me.
=====
Ditto for her comments over at Curry’s. She seems to have a scientist’s temperament, which is a rare thing in climate science these days.
Is this the 60 year cycle Dr. Syun Akasofu outlines that Dr Curry is referring to ?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/
@ur momisugly Salvatore Del Prete
During the past few months I have come to regard some of your commentary (not all of it) as among the most strategic being volunteered at WUWT. That’s part of the reason why I make the time to assertively direct the following candid comments your way.
Beware paradox. Have you ever solved a puzzle where you had to take what initially may have appeared to naive onlookers to be an inadvisable step backwards in order to reorient towards a more efficient path forward?
Even if there are limits to how far the combination of Marcia’s instincts & abilities can propel her solar-terrestrial-climate explorations, holistic vision has enabled her to concisely summarize the coupled terrestrial bundle (of temperature, mass, & velocity) — pointed out inefficiently by many others before her — in a single image (figure 4 of WKT2011).
THAT’s what makes her contributions special even though her solar-terrestrial-climate vision is definitely incomplete. For that one concisely potent contribution, Marcia earned from me a kind of acceptance that can probably endure many other potentially interfering darkly negative things.
Don’t underestimate the power & utility (to others) of that single 2011 illustration just because you have some well-founded objections to the patently incorrect “internal” spin controversially injected by Judy (who relatively easily brings needed resources & attention to the table we should keep in mind…)
Take the useful elements and discard the rest. (As I’ve been doing for the past few years) I suggest giving Marcia due credit for the brilliantly summarized element she has productively contributed.
Sincerely
Over at Jo Nova’s site one commenter mentioned that Judith Curry and her husband run a consultancy advising companies on climate change mitigation. This all would just seem to be advertsing for business by raising her profile. As ever, follow the money.
BTW I have no respect for JC for her previous stance on skeptics.
– – – – – – – –
Marcia Wyatt,
Thank you for following this thread and actively engaging here.
First, congratulations to Judith and you on your work product. Peer review of it and a journal publishing speak nothing to it scientifically, in my view. It is only your work product itself that speaks scientifically.
I can see your point that Judith’s and your paper quite literally does not “attempt to support or refute AGW” within a certain way of carefully parsing its content.
Stepping back to view the broader context of the IPCC centric Alarming AGW ‘theory’ dialog for the past 20+ years, Judith’s and your paper does implicitly acknowledge the validity of CAGW ‘theory’s’ coexistence with your ‘stadium wave’ concept. Why do you even implicitly acknowledge it if you are both neutral to it?.
You are not neutral.
John
OldWeirdHarold says:
October 11, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Pamela Gray says:
October 11, 2013 at 8:00 am
Harold and Pamela, Dr. Curry is a political hack that plays every side to the middle. This is well timed piece of climate magic dust to take the heat off the failed co2 sensitivity claims of generations of fellow warmers and the whopper that is the IPCC AR5. She also called for the IPCC to be “put down” last week if only for lame and abstract reasons that miss the chief crimes of the IPCC operative process by about thirty miles. Regardless it infuriated some of her warming peers and now she switches the side of the plate and throws them a validating distraction. It was all well timed and coordinated. For all the preaching of communication and moderation she remains tied to the AGW meme by the hip. Here we are again with more models and abstractions, essentially off the main topic but validating many authority entities that need elimination such as models and the IPCC. It presumes the validity of the hypothesis and as many have pointed out there remains no empirical evidence at all to support the basic AGW claim of warming on higher co2.
Skeptic bed-wetting is perhaps more damaging than the fanatics promoting climate alarmism.
Dr. Curry is effectively muddying the debate with irrelevant in-conclusion and “uncertainty” while minimizing the main failures of the AGW science talking points. There is nothing innocent about it either, it’s contrived for a political objective. It’s what she does. The “Pause” being the latest pregnant with presumption term she is promoting. The “Pause” is a nonsense concept on the face of it. Climate and weather fluctuate, if you model all the forces and weight them send us a memo. It’s a term to humor defeated warmist meme people including herself.
Maybe the next bone will be thrown to skeptics who will hail her a hero, after awhile you figure out what she is doing. She’s a strong believer in central planning climate expert authority, a truly absurd concept from the onset. If she doesn’t appear Full-Moon green crazed it only makes her more dangerous then her peers, more effective. She is cut from the same cloth, unequivocally. Study, fund, legislate authority over others. Who needs evidence of the AGW claims?
The ‘stadium wave’ makes sense to me. Last year when looking at the JG/U tree ring study, all of the long term charts which I had viewed came into focus in a fashion similar to a slideshow. The first impression that came to mind was that there was a moving wave as either the cool or warm cycle advanced over time around the NH, and that not all regions participated in the current cycle. If a close approximation of where we are in the current cycle could be established, then the potential for predicting the movement of the trend could be possible.
Marcia and Judith have apparently ascertained that the transmission of the oceanic oscillation through the climate system takes the form of a stadium wave.
That is new and useful.
The existence of an oceanic signal on a 60 year timescale has been known for decades so nothing new there.
However I think they are still stuck on the idea that the wave evens up over time for a zero net effect so in a sense it is indeed a defensive paper for AGW theory.
However, as I pointed out over at Climate etc. there is still the issue of the MWP, LIA, Current Warm Period and that phase to phase temperature stepping that shows up in the observations.
One can only achieve those characteristics if there is another, longer solar induced periodicity upon which the stadium wave is superimposed.
So, although their recognition of the stadium wave is good they still lag behind the analyses of myself and others.
That said, Marcia was positive about the ideas in my New Climate Model (seeing it as complementary to her findings rather than being inconsistent with them) so I get the impression that she at least is open minded as to where this might lead. I’d guess that having given support to Marcia, Judith is now of the same view.